The Arroyo Seco River. By Sam Davidson Not long ago, on an unseasonably warm Saturday, I went fishing in the desert. Well, technically the Arroyo Seco River isn’t desert—the fishable section flows through a rugged canyon sheathed in cha parral. But it might as well be in the desert. It’s hot and dry there much
By Dave Ammons On her 60th birthday my mother led me to the summit of Mt. Elbert, the highest among Colorado’s fourteeners. She was a mountain goat, small and sinewy, always seeking challenges in the wilderness. She was also determined, reticent to concede to limitations, and stubborn to the core. Not long after that climb
By Eric Booton There is a general rule of thumb that many of us live by: the bigger the challenge to access the fishing hole, the better the fishing is likely to be. With that in mind, a 30-minute flight on an Alaskan “bush” plane, plus a 45 minute drive in a beater truck on
As anglers, we have more in common with these folks than you might think. By Chris Hunt Years ago, when I first started working in advocacy for Trout Unlimited, one of our focus issues had to do with off-road vehicles and how some riders tended to take liberties on our public lands by pioneering new
Sometimes the fishing is secondary to other priorities. The author of this fine reminiscence with his father, Gordon VeneKlasen. By Garrett VeneKlasen Feb. 5, 2018 Twenty years ago today, the single engine plane my father was piloting went down in the mountains east of Taos. I remember that day like it was yesterday. Dad was
The one that got away. In November, I made the bi-annual stumble across the lawn, ungracefully lugging fly rods, waders and tackle to the shed to make way for ski gear in our indoor gear closet. Since catching the last fish on the fly of 2017 (a respectable leopard spotted rainbow trout from a small
I love Montana. I even like Bozeman. Sometimes those are two different things, as lots of Montanans will be happy to tell you. If I were going to pick a place where I could be close to Bozeman and still feel like I was in “real” Montana, I’d stay with some friends at their ranch
Beer at the ready, it’s time to start tying. By Mark Taylor My local Trout Unlimited chapter recently jumped on the trend of hosting fly-tying gatherings at bars. The inaugural gathering at Ballast Point Brewery in Daleville, Va., drew about 30 people, which is about how many people show up to the chapter’s monthly meetings.
By Chris Hunt Years ago, when I was cranking out fishing content for my old blog, I did a feature each Friday titled, “20 Questions,” which was a thinly veiled homage to the back page interivews of Vanity Fair where folks were asked off-the-wall questions via the famous Proust Questionnaire, like, “What is your greatest
When is too much water a bad thing for a river and its economy? Montana’s fabled Bighorn River is struggling these days thanks to a flawed water management strategy that is having a serious impact the wild trout fishery below Yellowtail Dam. There’s simply too much water in the river, almost all the time, and
If you’re on social media, I’m confident you have noticed that #vanlife has swept the nation. Powered by social media, modern day van life is inspired by the romantic excursions of previous generations who loaded up VW Westfalias and Transporters to chase down their favorite musical acts, post up at the river in a trout
The Steelhead Whisperer and his daughter with a jewel from the Big Sur River. By Sam Davidson On Martin Luther King Day three men and a diminutive young lady went fishing on California’s Big Sur River—a tiny but fierce watershed on the central coast with a bona fide steelhead run—and the smallest member of the
“The best thing one can do when it’s raining is to let it rain.” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow By Dave Ammons It was going to be a wet one. In the days prior to my trip up the canyon the forecast promised showers over the weekend, although I was hoping for the intermittent variety. Nope.
Ice fishing can be fun. Right? By Mark Taylor “Ice fishing?” The text popped up the other day, a week into the unusually frigid spell that had gripped much of the continental U.S. “I don’t think so,” I replied. I’m usually up for just about any kind of fishing, especially if options are limited. And
By Dave Ammons I’m pretty sure that woven into most rivers in North America are intervals of private and public water, and the river I fish is no different. I am privileged to have access to nearly a mile of private water, a beautiful mix of long runs, boulder-strewn pocke ts, and stretches of riffles
The Steelhead Whisperer, on his home water, in his characteristic pose. By Sam Davidson Apparently I like to observe important fishing occasions by making other anglers feel better about themselves. 2017 was a case in point. I ended the calendar year, and the 2016-17 winter steelhead season (in March), in the same fashion: by going
By Dave Ammons For about two weeks in late June, the garden off the cabin deck explodes in the brilliant red-orange shades of the Papaver rhoeas, common poppies whose seeds were first sown in that spot by my grandfather years ago. I imagine him scratching the soil, strewing a few handfuls of seed indiscriminately, perhaps
By Mark Taylor During a visit last summer to the stomping grounds of my youth, the family and I found ourselves not far from one of my favorite fishing spots, a small pond at the site of a long-ago razed lumber mill. “I want to show you guys a place where Grandpa Steve, Uncle Greg
By Chris Hunt It’s December. How did that happen? Why, just last week, it seemed, I was casting fat Chernobyls to willing cutthroats on Bear Creek under the warmest of summer suns. But today, as I step outside to grab the mail, my nostrils freeze tight and the vapor from my breath circles my face,
Tight-lining a tandem set of nymphs through a bucket on the North Fork of the South Branch of the Potomac River in West Virginia with his 11-foot Euro nymph rod, Mark Taylor comes tight to a 14-inch rainbow trout. (Sam Dean photo.) By Mark Taylor Fishermen never stop learning, but we are also victims of
